Foreword "If Plot Were All There Were"

[s~Z]

>>>In any event an interesting paragraph.<<<

Especially this:

> But because
> this is a novel first of all, her character is not
> necessarily under Orwell's firm control.  Novelists
> may wish to indulge the worst kinds of totalitarian
> whims directed against the freedom of their
> characters.  But often as not, they scheme in vain,
> for characters always manage to evade one's all-seeing
> eye long enoughto think thoughts and utter dialogue
> one could never have come up with if plot were all
> there were.

Every time I dig in to Pynchon's work I see a novel first of all, with an
internal [il]logic all its own. Seems to me the source material is being
used more to stimulate the imagination of the author [and reader] for the
purpose of creating a fictional realm than to write a state of the
civilization address. Since his source material is so vast and his
imagination so unbridled, readers can take it and see themselves, and their
pet opinions, all through it. From Atheism to Zoroastrianism, it's all
there. Great fodder for prooftexting whatever point one would like to make.